WHO: Swine flu pandemic has begun, 1st in 41 years

GENEVA (AP) - The World Health Organization declared a swine flupandemic Thursday - the first global flu epidemic in 41 years - asinfections in the United States, Europe, Australia, South Americaand elsewhere climbed to nearly 30,000 cases.

The long-awaited pandemic announcement is scientificconfirmation that a new flu virus has emerged and is quicklycircling the globe. WHO will now ask drugmakers to speed upproduction of a swine flu vaccine, which it said would availableafter September. The declaration will also prompt governments todevote more money toward efforts to contain the virus.

WHO chief Dr. Margaret Chan made the announcement Thursday afterthe U.N. agency held an emergency meeting with flu experts. Chansaid she was moving to phase 6 - the agency's highest alert level -which means a pandemic, or global epidemic, is under way.

"The world is moving into the early days of its first influenzapandemic in the 21st century," Chan told reporters. "The virus isnow unstoppable."

"However, we do not expect to see a sudden and dramatic jump inthe number of severe and fatal infections," she added.

On Thursday, WHO said 74 countries had reported 28,774 cases ofswine flu, including 144 deaths. Chan described the danger posed bythe virus as "moderate."

The agency has stressed that most cases are mild and require notreatment, but the fear is that a rash of new infections couldoverwhelm hospitals and health authorities - especially in poorercountries.

Still, about half of the people who have died from swine fluwere previously young and healthy - people who are not usuallysusceptible to flu. Swine flu is also crowding out regular fluviruses. Both features are typical of pandemic flu viruses.

Swine flu is also continuing to spread during the start ofsummer in the northern hemisphere. Normally, flu viruses disappearwith warm weather, but swine flu is proving to be resilient.

"What this declaration does do is remind the world that fluviruses like H1N1 need to be taken seriously," said KathleenSebelius, the U.S. Secretary of Health and Human Services, warningthat more cases could crop up in the fall.

"We need to start preparing now in order to be ready for apossible H1N1 immunization campaign starting in late September,"she said in a statement from Washington.

Chan said WHO was now recommending that flu vaccine makers startmaking swine flu vaccine. Drug giant GlaxoSmithKline PLC said theycould start large-scale production of pandemic vaccine in July butthat it would take several months before large quantities would beavailable.

Glaxo spokesman Stephen Rea said the company's first doses ofvaccine would be reserved for countries who had ordered it inadvance, including Belgium, Britain and France. He said the companywould also donate 50 million doses to WHO for poor countries.

Pascal Barollier, a spokesman for Sanofi-Aventis, said they werealso working on a pandemic vaccine but WHO had not yet asked themto start producing mass quantities of it.

The pandemic decision might have been made much earlier if WHOhad more accurate information about swine flu's rising sweepthrough Europe. Chan said she called the emergency meeting with fluexperts after concerns were raised that some countries like Britainwere not accurately reporting their cases.

Chan said the experts unanimously agreed there was a widerspread of swine flu than what was being reported.

Chan would not say which country tipped the world into thepandemic, but the agency's top flu expert, Dr. Keiji Fukuda, saidthe situation from Australia seemed to indicate the virus wasspreading rapidly there - up to 1,260 cases late Wednesday.

Many health experts said the world has been in a pandemic forweeks but WHO became bogged down by politics. In May, severalcountries urged WHO not to declare a pandemic, fearing it wouldcause social and economic turmoil.

"This is WHO finally catching up with the facts," said MichaelOsterholm, a flu expert at the University of Minnesota.

Fear has already gripped Argentina, where thousands of peopleworried about swine flu flooded into hospitals this week, bringingemergency health services in the capital of Buenos Aires to thebrink of collapse. Last month, a bus arriving in Argentina fromChile was stoned by people who thought a passenger on it had swineflu.

Chile has the most swine flu cases in South America, and thesouthern hemisphere is moving into its winter flu season.

In Hong Kong on Thursday, the government ordered allkindergartens and primary schools closed for two weeks after adozen students tested positive for swine flu. The decision affectedover half a million students.

In the United States, where there have been more than 13,000cases and at least 27 deaths from swine flu, officials at the U.S.Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said the move would notchange how the U.S. tackled swine flu.

"Our actions in the past month have been as if there was apandemic in this country," Glen Nowak, a CDC spokesman, saidThursday.

The U.S. government has already increased the availability offlu-fighting medicines and authorized $1 billion for thedevelopment of a new swine flu vaccine. In addition, new cases seemto be declining in many parts of the country, U.S. health officialssay, as North America moves out of its traditional winter fluseason.

Still, New York City reported three more swine flu deathsThursday, including one child under 2, one teenager and one personin their 30s.

"Countries where outbreaks appear to have peaked should preparefor a second wave of infection," Chan warned, adding that thevirus could mutate "without rhyme or reason, at any time."

In Mexico, where the epidemic was first detected, the outbreakpeaked in April. Mexico now has less than 30 cases reported a day,down from an average of 300, Health Secretary Jose Angel Cordovatold The Associated Press. Mexico has confirmed 6,337 cases,including 108 deaths.

Cordova said he is concerned that other countries were nottaking drastic measures to stop its spread like Mexico, whichclosed schools, restaurants, theaters, and canceled public events.He said the Mexican government has strengthened its detectionsystem to spot cases in most of its 32 states to prepare for apossible second wave of infections in the winter.

"There's much anxiety over how the virus will act in theSouthern Hemisphere, because the zone is currently showing a largenumber of new cases, in particular Australia, Chile andArgentina," Cordova said.

Many experts said the declaration of a pandemic did not mean thevirus was getting deadlier.

"People might imagine a virus is now going to rush in and killeveryone," said John Oxford, a professor of virology at St. Bart'sand Royal London Hospital. "That's not going to happen."

But Oxford said the swine flu virus might evolve into a moredangerous strain in the future.

"That is always a possibility with influenza viruses," hesaid. "We have to watch very carefully to see what this virusdoes." --- AP Medical Writers Maria Cheng reported from London and MichaelStobbe reported from Atlanta. Associated Press Writers Michael E.Miller in Mexico City, Dikky Sinn in Hong Kong, Vincente L. Panettain Buenos Aires and Bradley S. Klapper in Geneva also contributedto this report.

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